The 57th World Conker Championships were held at The Shuckburgh Arms pub in Southwick near Oundle
Competitors travelled from across the globe to take part in a cracking event.
The 57th World Conker Championships was held at The Shuckburgh Arms pub in Southwick near Oundle yesterday (Sunday, October 13).
The competition involves threading a horse chestnut seed onto a piece of string and taking turns striking an opponent’s conker in an attempt to break them.
Kelci Banschbach from the USA was crowned world conker champion and is the first American winner.
She said: “I’ve never won anything like this before and I’m amazed I have done this.
“I’ve not really played conkers before so this is just a surprise.”
The runner up was men’s open champion, David Jakins from Northamptonshire, who has been competing for more than 40 years but has never won before.
He said: “This means so much to me. I’m 82 and my legs aren’t what they were so to stand up there and become men’s world champion is wonderful.”
In other competitions, the intermediate 11 to 16 World Championship was shared between Enija Butane from Leicestershire and Clara Axmacher from Huntingdon, after they couldn’t be separated in the final.
The junior world champion is Sebastian Sheffield from Northamptonshire, who defeated Nicoda Hutchinson from Cambridgeshire in the final and the winner of the team competition was The Skuumkoppers from The Netherlands.
Chairperson Jim Packer said: “This has been another wonderful day in which the sun shone and the crowds came out.
“Everyone seemed to have a lovely day and really enjoyed themselves.
“To have a winner from the USA and team champions from the Netherlands shows how truly international we are.”
There were representatives of 10 countries taking part and the 256 places in the adult competition were sold out well in advance.
About 100 juniors also played, and the attendance of 2,000 was also at its maximum.
Did you attend? Let us know in the comments.
